Thursday, July 08, 2010

I'd like to know what you think of BP just past the midpoint of 2010. I'd like to know what you like, what you don't like, what you would like to see more of, what you would like to see less of. I can't promise I'll be able to respond to each comment but I will read them all. What I can promise is that I and the rest of us here will take your feedback into great consideration as we continue to strive to make BP the type of site that baseball fans feel they absolutely must visit every day.

BP staff member Joe Sheehan

That, more or less, is why forums are basically a non-starter. All cost, no revenue.

TangoTiger

Fangraphs has forums, and they don't charge their readers. Primer has forums, and they don't charge their readers. You've got to have a better reason for not having a forum considering that you are already charging readers.

BP staff member Joe Sheehan

How about this?

I've done sports content as a business for 15 years. By any standard I'm one of a small number of people to do it successfully outside the mainstream, I've played most of the roles one can play and holy god I'm sick of listening to you act as if you've had 1% of the success the people you criticize have had. How about you grant that I might know what I'm talking about, given that sports content has been my career, without me having to make a business case to someone with no standing to ask for one?

Fangraphs, as far as I can tell, is financed by a rich grandpa. Primer/BTF/Newsstand/Brand of the Day isn't a business in any real sense of the word, it's r.s.b ported to the Web and stripped of its spark. That you would make these comparisons shows just how little you understand of Prospectus, how little you've ever understood.

Stick to being an academic, Thomas. Stick to your sycophant-laden fora and your above-it-all mien. Stop jumping in here and cheap-shotting a business that you've never comprehended on your best day.

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They are both Yiddische first names. Srul is a diminutive of Yisrael (Israel) and Itza (also Itcha) is a diminutive of Yitzhak (Isaac). They were the first names given to me by parents, and were the names of a recently deceased relatives. They then picked out an english name with the same initials.

I remember you outing yourself as a Jew a while back and at that moment I made the connection between "Srul Itza" and "Yisrael Yitzhak."

I have a Hebrew name but I never use it. I think it's Yehuda, although that is not the direct translation of my English name. (Is that common?)

Wow, count me as another person who has been vaguely wondering what Srul Itza was an anagram of for the last decade.

I've actually explained it 2 or 3 times before now, in other threads where we have discussed our screen names.

Which reminds me -- SoSH U at work -- what was your Neyer Board moniker.

I have a Hebrew name but I never use it. I think it's Yehuda, although that is not the direct translation of my English name. (Is that common?)

As in my case, not uncommon. I knew guys whose Hebrew names were things like Shlomo or Moishe, and their parents wanted something more anglicized, so it became Steven or Mark. My father's Hebrew name was Avram, but his American name was Arthur.

Chatter must be fun if you follow a team that has any appreciable critical mass of fans, the more so if two are playing. I used to post in Rangers-Royals game chatters once in a while and it was like wandering into an abandoned coal mine.

I rarely post in them, but Mets chatters are generally great to read during or after the game, particularly if I can't watch the game. They often prove more informative than the wire stories or SportsCenter highlights.

This has been a remarkably painful series for Reds fans -- Tie it in the ninth, only to lose it in the twelfth; blow a six run run lead in the ninth and lose it; take a perfecto into the 9th and lose it in the 11th

When I first started posting on the Neyer Board, I was a junior in college, and now I'm 30...that's a little scary. In the interim, I've had 3 jobs, moved from Boston to LA to NY, lived in 6 different dorms/apartments, and gotten engaged (to a woman I started dating during a 3-year hiatus from BTF--coincidence?).

Since most of this thread turned into a stroll down memory lane . . . I remember catching on here sometime in the late summer of 2001.

I was at my first (and only) adult job. I remember following some of the Sept. 11 coverage via Primer because it, unlike the rest of the Internets, could load. I remember the Mabry trade... monitoring the Boston Red Sox team bus as a canary in the coal mine for the strike.

Some of the great Yankees-Red Sox playoff games. Game Chatters. The birth of "It's a Trap!"

But since then, I've gone gray, gotten married, had a kid (who's a big baseball fan now) and seen BBTF blocked at work, imposing a sort of hiatus.

It's nice though to have a place to come in and poke around in and feel like you've never really left.

Sean, I like the fact that you're 31 and your profile still says you're 27. I suspect that the day I have a kid will be the last day I have time to post here...luckily I don't expect that day to come for a few years.

When did new Primer/registration happen? I found Primer before the switch, but didn't really post until after. I probably was in college then...and am still in college now. Great, thanks for reminding me.

I'm pretty sure that New Primer started in June of 2004. Certainly that's the most common join date of the old-timers, and it makes sense that is why.

I posted for most of the first year as "ESPNerik", and had a blog under that name. When my employer got excited about social media and I had to burrow a bit further underground, I was really worried that my identity had already been established, and I didn't think it was transferable.

My mother just sent me a box of my old comic books and magazines from when she was cleaning out her attic. Tucked in there was something I had completely forgotten about: A program for the 1976 White Sox, with the cover signed by Terry Forster, Minnie Minoso, Pat Kelly, Bucky Dent and Kevin Bell. For a team as terrible as the 1976 White Sox, that's not a bad collection of names.

It turns out it was this game. My brother and I kept score the whole way.

I'm glad I took my wife out to see a movie tonight. Movie sucked, the date was nice, and I'm glad I missed this one. Checked the score and see 15-1, I'm expecting to see 5-6 runs by Kazmir and then multiple bullpen fails. Not the case, Kazmir stays in to allow 13 runs.

That is punishment. Scioscia didn't feel like wasting his bullpen so he lets Kazmir take the beating. This tells me he doesn't particularly care about getting Kazmir right anymore. He's given up, and I would be surprised to see Kazmir in the rotation after the ASB. Not sure if Bell or O'Sullivan will get the first crack.

Now what to do about Kazmir:
1. Bullpen?
2. Can he be sent to the minors? As a veteran I'm sure he could refuse the assignment, and he'd probably have to go through waivers. Nobody would claim him obviously.
3. Just release him.

I've been here since 2003. I used to write regularly for another site, doing what amounted to Angel columns and occasional blogging. Szym remembered my name from r.s.bb days, and asked me over to, presumably, write Angel columns and occasional blogging. Seven years later, there's no Angel blog, and I haven't written anything in years. Every once in a while I'll ask about the blog, but... *shrug* If it ever comes around, I'd do it.

I do miss the chatters, which were just great. My favorite one was the chatter for this epic game. It was a blast to have Brewer fans crawl into the chatter at their ungodly hour, wondering what the hell was happening.

This has been a great thread, nothing like what I was expecting to see. I haven't been around for awhile, took a new job and can't really do this at work anymore, but this made me realize that I miss it.

I started out on Sean Forman's "Outside the Box" blog which stemmed off baseball-reference back around 2000 or so. Primer launched soon after that.

After reading this and getting caught up I'll try to poke in more often. Looking forward to catching up with a lot of you at the SABR convention.

I do feel a little like this whole sabermetrics thing has passed me by a bit. McCoy had a post on the first page I think, about how 7 or 8 years ago you could do most of what was cutting edge on a spreadsheet, but he saw where it was going turning into real science, and how he decided not to quit his day job.

I kind of feel the same way. Part of why I don't post much anymore is because I've basically been out of it for so long, I don't have anything useful to say anymore :-) Real life got in the way I guess, and post-2005 sabermetrics left me in the dust, because I just don't have the time to read it, let alone practice it anymore. Kinda depressing I suppose.

I remember getting very pissed with Joe and SJ in a sports bar in DC during (2003?) the playoffs trying to get them to put the Yankees-Twins playoff game on a TV when all that was on was college football.

Which reminds me -- SoSH U at work -- what was your Neyer Board moniker.

Srul,

I didn't post there as frequently as some, and I think I had a couple names when I was easing into the process. The handle I settled on and posted under most frequently was Tony Muser's Mom, in honor of Rob's undying love for the Royals' skipper.

Joe and Sean, your ability to think critically and discuss issues intelligently is why I had you pegged as valuable contributors. I don't think you should feel pressure to break new sabermetric ground every post.

Can I echo the call for a single game chatter thread per day. I think the desire is there for people to chatter, but it's a problem of getting a critical mass. No one bothers to go because no one else is ever there. A single thread would solve that problem.

Can I add again - bloody facebook - I am friends with a lot of people here on facebook and always seem to talk baseball. I need to get back here and get talking baseball again as too much baseball talk drives my Aussie mates a little crazy (seriously!)

Anyway - great thread in the end - this place is special in a lot of ways and I always show it off to anyone who has a slight interest in the game.

There is nothing like a thread here when a huge story breaks - pre sterids, post steroids, #### steroids. When a huge story breaks - THIS IS THE PLACE TO BE.

I do miss the chatters, which were just great. My favorite one was the chatter for this epic game. It was a blast to have Brewer fans crawl into the chatter at their ungodly hour, wondering what the hell was happening.

One of the most memorable Brewers games in my lifetime (I was born after 1982, so, yeah). Damn Guerrero. In his next start, Sheets struck out the side against the Astros on nine pitches in the 3rd inning. What an amazing year for him.

I've been here since the Outside the Box days. I was a junior in college, and now I've been teaching off and on for almost 5 years at a different college (while, as can be seen from my handle, writing an interminable dissertation). 2 states, 3 places of residence, 0 kids, 0 pets. Not that interesting, I guess!

I do feel a little like this whole sabermetrics thing has passed me by a bit. McCoy had a post on the first page I think, about how 7 or 8 years ago you could do most of what was cutting edge on a spreadsheet, but he saw where it was going turning into real science, and how he decided not to quit his day job.

It's easy to fall into this attitude, but the fact is that old-fashioned sabermetrics is often still extremely valuable. The fellows peddling new ideas frequently don't tell us the whole story behind their metric, precisely because they are planning on quitting the day job. Thus, they write about what they are interested in, which is not necessarily what fans of a particular team are interested in.

These newer ideas are often tiny incremental advances. Old-fashioned sabermetrics still works, and doesn't leave a whole lot out.

The reality is that most of us have got older, have got more responsibilities, and consequently got less time. It's not that we've been passed by, but that we don't have time or inclination to argue that new stuff isn't necessarily significantly better stuff.

I never use ignore, but it strikes me as a perfect way to deal with the sorts of posts that people complain about. If you don't like a particular poster, then use the ignore feature, a personal option, as opposed to shutting down a thread. It's not like you have to read every thread on hot topics.

It isn't the perfect way, it's an imperfect way. I was very reluctant in moving some people to the ignore list, because they often have interesting things to say when they haven't fallen into a sterile political argument. Just yesterday I had to take two people off ignore, because I thought they might have said something interesting. (One had, and one hadn't.)

Baseball Politics Factory has evolved over a long time, and I haven't always been as hostile to it as I am now. The descent into shabby nastiness of BBPF is sophomoric and pointless, and deserving of all the scorn and censure decent people heap upon it. There is an appropriate venue provided here for such shenanigans.

I just read through the whole thread and have added some of the suggestions to my to-do list.

A few comments...

This site is definitely not a real business. You can't run a real business in a part-time manner. Although my day job once afforded me a great deal of free time, my current position (IT Coordinator with an 8-4 day schedule) just doesn't allow me to spend as much time as I'd like operating a real business. If this were a real business, I'd be driving a much better car and some of the charm would be lost. :)

Many users are noted as joining in 2004 although they were regular members of the site before then. During the transition from Greymatter to Expression Engine in 2004, I wasn't able to link all the user accounts to previous handles.

Although my server metrics show much faster page loads for the main pages because of a change in the caching system, the individual discussion pages are still loading much slower than I want. I'll be moving to a new database server in the next month or so, which should help. I'll also be doubling the amount of memory on the web server next week as well. Some changes to the database structure and page design should also improve performance. These changes should greatly improve the site's reliability (and greatly reduce database outages) as the database server is now five years old.

Part of the updates/redesign I'm working on should improve things. I've learned a lot in the last six years--about web design, usability, managing an online community, and programming--so I fully expect the changes will be well received by most. I have a large list of excellent suggestions that I plan on incorporating. Of course, time and money, as always, will be the biggest limiting factors. :)

I am very thankful for all the positive comments. Knowing the site means so much to so many warms my heart.

When did new Primer/registration happen? I found Primer before the switch, but didn't really post until after.

Late April 2004. I was away for 2 weeks when it happened, so despite visiting regularly in that era about 1000 people registered before me. (I'm member # 1001, as it turns out.)

I migrated from the Neyer boards, where my two most notable* contributions were (a) telling people the Twins - targeted for contraction - would compete soon because the money they weren't spending on major-league salary appeared to have been spent on amateur scouting and player development; and (b) taking Neyer to task for quoting a Red Sox staffer out of context, making it seem like Valentin's injury was being blamed on not having a new stadium. I was lurking around here in 2001-02, but I don't know when I started posting.

If you think this thread is a trip down memory lane, go to web.archive.org and search on www.baseballprimer.com. You can get the BPro cease-and-desist thread ("Unexpected Reader Mail"), among others.

Since I started posting at Primer, I'm still in the same job (though promoted), in the same house, with the same wife and the same number of kids. I don't think anyone had me pegged as "stable".

I'll just add that I love this site, I hate Joe Sheehan, and I hope no one has me on ignore. My only regret about this website is that it is only a web community instead of a real one. Other than that I think it is pretty perfect. What makes it that way are two things. Off topic threads bound together by ongoing conversations with continuing interlocutors and readers. Without that it would just be another site. Over the years I feel like I've gotten to know most of the regulars. You wouldn't have that without the off topic threads. I've also learned a lot. Those are the things that makes this special. Baseball is almost a tangential interest that brought people together in the first place. For instance I haven't posted in a baseball thread in days but the world cup thread is a must read.

I'm a reasonably smart guy ... until you put me in a BBTF discussion. I'm constantly amazed by the raw intelligence and depth of knowledge of the posters here. I learn something in every discussion, and not just about baseball, of course. I don't know what I'd do without this place.

Did he say if was working for the government or for a private company?

It's a private company, so you can rest in peace. It's one of those stimulus jobs that's getting funded by a surtax on talk radio shows, but his paycheck's being written by a division of one of Al Sharpton's spinoff corporations.

They are both Yiddische first names. Srul is a diminutive of Yisrael (Israel) and Itza (also Itcha) is a diminutive of Yitzhak (Isaac). They were the first names given to me by parents, and were the names of a recently deceased relatives. They then picked out an english name with the same initials.

In this vein, this might be a good time to make an invitation: I've been posting here for years, but for many posters I have no idea why they chose their handle, or what it means. So if your handle is something other than your real name, maybe you can post a brief blurb explaining it.

My handle combines my interest in history (King John, according to one tradition, died from a surfeit of peaches) and my interest in deadball baseball (Peaches Graham was an on-and-off player for Cleveland, Chicago and Boston in the 'aughts). Furthermore, I played in a 1908 Replay baseball league some years ago, and Peaches Graham was one of my catchers. My team got off to a hot start, but slumped towards the end of the season. It came down to a one-game playoff, and I was trailing in the 9th with runners in scoring position and Graham at the plate. Unfortunately, he grounded out and kept me out of the playoffs. So my team really did die from a surfeit of Peaches Graham.

I've considered changing my handle from time to time, but have never come up with as apropos a moniker. I keep my real initials after my handle so folks can keep track of my identity when I do change. A handful of folks might even remember me from old Primer, before my current handle.

So if your handle is something other than your real name, maybe you can post a brief blurb explaining it.

Well, my real name is 'Paul'. 'fra paolo' was a nickname bestowed on me by friends/work colleagues because I like renaissance art and liturgical music, based on that of my favourite painter, Fra Angelico.

I'm Shooty because I first became a fan of the MLB and the A's in 1979, but didn't really have a good handle on what was going on until 1981 with the Billy Martin A's. Shooty Babbit was their 2nd baseman and was from my hometown of Hayward and I played 2nd base for my LL team. Naturally, Shooty was my favorite player along with Rickey, Dwayne Murphy and Tony Armas.

CFiJ - Cubs Fan in Japan. I chose it because I'm a Cubs fan, and I live in Japan. I started using initials because it was easier than typing out the whole thing every time. This was before registration, of course.

So if your handle is something other than your real name, maybe you can post a brief blurb explaining it.

I like the phrase Dag nabbit. Then I found out Dag (with a little circle-thingee on top of it) is an actual first name in Sweden (though it's pronounced more like Doug) - and figured, well, that's in then - Dag Nabbit.

Hey Dayn. Just out of curiosity, what do your bosses think of you posting here without a pseudonym? Do they even know?

They've never said a word about it. Obviously, I recuse myself from certain FOX-related discussions, but they've never asked me to stop posting or adopt a nom-de-Primer or anything. That wasn't the case for a previous employer.

I first came over because of a mention in a Neyer piece. I wasn't a part of his boards, I don't even remember him having any.

When I first visited, I didn't even know it was a discussion site, I just read the articles like Voros Baseball Cynic and Werr's Digging. I think after a week of reading everything that I could find, I finally clicked on the Clutch Hits link and found the linked articles and discussion. I had previously figured that a sabr savvy site wouldn't have anything interesting in a clutch hits area. I remember one piece having less than 100 comments, and people were wondering if it was the most the site had seen.

Anyway, I've been married the whole time, changed jobs 3 times, bought a house, and two dogs in that timeframe. And the only time that I haven't checked here daily was when I was on vacation, and since I've had a blackberry, every day.

I don't comment that much, but this is a great place to visit. Thank you, Jim.

They've never said a word about it. Obviously, I recuse myself from certain FOX-related discussions, but they've never asked me to stop posting or adopt a nom-de-Primer or anything. That wasn't the case for a previous employer.

"Jolly Old St. Neck Wound" used to be Jolly Old St. Nick, which as we all know was the name that Sterling first bestowed on Nick Swisher when the Yanks first got him last year. At some point after that I got into a tussle with Sam over who won the 1996 and 1999 World Series (I mistakenly thought that Sam had forgotten), and someone suggested that if I didn't tone it down, my new name was likely to be Jolly Old St. Neck Wound. So what the hell, why not? The Georgia part is a tribute to the location of Sam's Knife Co. I kind of liked Szym's "Moscow In The Bleachers" tag, too, but once a Yankee fan, always a Yankee fan.

I don't comment that much, but this is a great place to visit. Thank you, Jim.

Ditto.

I think the first of the BTF iterations I came across was directly from the comments at baseball-reference. I used to post frequently as bamadan at baseballboards before it became overly controlling and the new Braves moderator was Bill Shanks. My username is my initials but think I posted a few Admiral Ackbar jokes back in the day. I've been here since long before registration, read threads nearly daily, but still have less than a thousand posts.